C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 100

Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen review

    The Don't Tell My Parents series is one I am deeply enamoured of. It's on my list along with Ex-Heroes, Wearing the Cape, and Confessions of a D-List Supervillain for some of the best superhero fiction out there (along with my Supervillainy Saga of course). The books are neither dark or especially deep but they're fun.

    The premise for the series as a whole is Penny Akk, daughter of superheroes Brainy Akk and the Audit, has discovered her superpowers at pub...

Always Chaotic Evil: In Defense of Orcs and Anti-Elves

    Ragnarok Publications was kind enough to share a short little essay by me on my favorite misunderstood monster in fantasy: the orc. Who doesn't love those green-skinned ne'er-do-wells? Well, apparently the gods of fantasy don't because they always get the short end of the stick. But what is "evil" in fantasy and why must it always be the pug-looking tusked warrior races? I don't get into it in-depth but my article talks a little about how it ties into my upcoming book Wrait...

The Expanse (Season One) review

    The Expanse is probably the best science fiction program on television right now. For once, I'm not saying this because it's one of the few science fiction programs on today. There's a surprising now out there and available, especially if you count superhero shows. No, The Expanse is one of the best science fiction programs out there today because it's good.

    Really good.

Evolution works in mysterious ways.    While not quite up there with Geo...

The Liar's Key review

    Mark Lawrence is one of my favorite fantasy writers today. It's not because he's good, though he is. It's not because he's grimdark, though he is. No, it's because Mark Lawrence does a wonderful job of creating strong characters which are just entertaining to spend time with. It doesn't matter what Jalan, Snorri, or other characters are doing in his books, it's just fun to hang around with them for a time and watch how they play off of one another. You could easily do a ser...

Spectre (2015) review

Note: This review will contain spoilers for Spectre.

    The very likely last James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig ends not with a bang but a whimper. It's not as bad as Die Another Day but, really, that's a tremendously low bar to set in a series which has twenty-four movies. However, the excellent acting and stunts don't disguise this is a medicore script designed to tie around the return of an organization which has already had its appearance spoiled by the title.

 &nbs...

Bioshock 2 review

    I've been meaning to play this for some time but my Xbox 360 crapped out so I was forced to put it off until I got a new one. It's destined for being uploaded into Xbox One via Backwards Compatibility but I didn't want to wait to play. Bioshock 2 gets something of a bad rap, being a cash-in title created two extremely well-done, extremely-well-written, and (let's face it) somewhat pretensions philosophical works.

    And that's me saying it, the king of "Vide...

Dead Space review

    One of the most influential games of all time is System Shock. It is the father of survival horror and gave birth to many other science fiction and horror games. One of the most famous of these is the Bioshock series, which is effectively System Shock set underwater and in the past than in a cyberpunk future. Another series which is the spiritual successor of the series is Dead Space, which takes all of the horror and future atmosphere then adjusts the gameplay to be more o...

Ex-Isle review

    The Ex-Heroes novels by Peter Clines are one of the best high concept books which are presently out there. The concept is a simple X meets Y sort of setting. "What would happen if the zombie apocalypse happened in a world with superheroes?" I've also seen it described as "Land of the Dead meets The Avengers" and that's not a bad description. A bunch of low-powered heroes based loosely on popular archetypes are in the midst of the zombie apocalypse and do their best to save...

Legends of Tomorrow (Pilot part 1 and 2) review

    I was skeptical of this show. Very skeptical. Which is a strange thing because I'm overall very pleased with the DC television Renaissance which is going on lately. As bad as I think the direction they're taking the movies is, Suicide Squad exempted, I'm overall extremely pleased with their television shows. Some of them, honestly, are every bit as good as the Justice League animated universe which is not praise I throw around lightly.

    So why the skepticis...

War God Rising review

    War God Rising is the latest book by Tim Marquitz, one of my favorite authors for quick and entertaining popcorn fiction. No denial, Tim Marquitz is also one of the editors for Ragnarok Publications so I'm predisposed to like him but if you're still remotely interested in hearing what I have to say then read on to hear my brutal revenge for all of the changes he's made me make! *ahem* I mean, my fair and balanced review of his writing.

    The setting is a Rom...